Why “MetaAutomation?” The short answer is: I had to call the pattern language something.

The slightly longer answer is that it is about the quality automation space, and the “meta” is about looking at the bigger picture to define where the value is… and then going to get it.

Why a pattern language? Isn’t that kind of complicated?

The structure of a pattern language helps simplify by breaking the problem (how to measure and deliver comprehensive knowledge on behavior of the SUT, fast) down into smaller problems. It also puts each of those problems and the solutions into simple relationships with each other.

Why quality automation? Didn’t “test automation” work just fine?

No, test automation never worked very well and I write about this extensively elsewhere and in my book, but the problem here is that it didn’t describe anything about how to deliver the knowledge to the business. “Test automation” was just about describing value to what the test/QA role can do for measuring quality with automation, not communicating it.

“Quality automation” is a new term I introduced that I use to replace “test automation.” I did not do this to annoy people or drive a claim into the fertile ground of semantics! I did it for some … more

One would think that people who make automation to drive the system under test (SUT) would be eager to preserve the quality knowledge of how the SUT is driven and how it responds, how fast, etc. For … more